THOUSANDS of train users face chaos at Christmas after crunch talks to avert rail strikes collapsed in less than an hour yesterday.

A meeting between ScotRail and the Rail, Maritime and Transport union lasted less than 45 minutes and failed to halt two threatened 24-hour strikes by rail staff on December 22 and Christmas Eve.

The walkouts are in support of former ScotRail conductor Scott Lewis, who was fired over claims he made a passenger cry during a dispute in March.

ScotRail have described the industrial action as cynically timed and aimed at causing disruption just before Christmas.

A spokesman said: “It is extremely disappointing that the talks failed to reach a solution. The RMT wanted the former ticket examiner to be reinstated.”

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “RMT arrived at the talks only to find that ScotRail were not prepared to discuss the issue at the heart of the dispute and that’s the dismissal and reinstatement of Scott Lewis.

“We have been led up the garden path by the company, who had no intention of entering into meaningful discussions and as a result of ScotRail’s actions the strike remains on.”

Almost half of ScotRail’s 4600 staff are RMT members.

But ScotRail said they had contingency plans, including using non-RMT members, to keep any impact on travellers to a minimum.

During RMT rail strikes in 2010, ScotRail ran 95 per cent of services.

A spokesman said: “There is no doubt that the majority of our services will run. As always, we are available for further meaningful talks at any time.”

RMT members on the firm’s sleeper services will also strike for 24 hours from the evening of December 21 and again from the evening of December 23.

No more talks between RMT and ScotRail are planned before then.

RMT members voted last month by a margin of two to one for industrial action.

Scott Lewis has history of run-ins with passengers

Lewis, 40, from Glasgow’s south side, was fired over claims he made a passenger cry and bullied him during a row in March.

But the union insists he was merely doing his job and trying to help the man buy the correct ticket.

Lewis had previously been disciplined for throwing a 13-year-old boy off a train at a deserted station for not having a valid ticket.

He was reprimanded for leaving the boy stranded at an unmanned stop in 2004, then failing to report the incident.